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3rd Party Developer requests


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So there are lots of threads about 3rd party developers developing aircraft that they have either made for other sims, or have a burning fascination for and I'm very excited to see a lot of these in development, but let me put an idea out there...

 

For years many of us have been following ED's every sim and announcement, and I own almost everything that they have ever made, whether or not I'm interested in flying it, but more because detailed flight simulators are a rare thing and I want to give my support.

 

I will without doubt buy a lot of the 3rd party add on packages as they become available and I was one of the first in line with my cash to support Beczl's MiG 21 to further support this simulator.

 

But as a customer of these products, let me tell you a little about what I would 'like' to see and spend my money on, and I believe that there are many of us in this community that feel the same way...

 

I loved the old days of Red Flag with the first Flaming Cliffs release, and the competition and camaraderie that it brought, and I yearn to see it return, but there is a problem. Since the DCS titles have come along, ED have taken the whole simulation experience to the next level, almost beyond what many of us had imagined, which is fantastic, but the environment in which we fly has become a little stale and barren. I by no means wish to tell ED how they should be doing things, and don't mean any disrespect to their products but I need to fly with other humans, against other humans in an environment that makes us work hard to achieve our goals.

 

As it stands today (not withstanding how FC3 will change this), you fly a single type in a set environment against AI enemy's that let's just say leave a little to be desired. The result is that most of us have flown DCS: A-10C until we can pick off targets with our Lighting pod, GBU's, AGM's or JDAM's before they knew we were coming.

 

So what do we want? Despite the long build up (and thanks for reading if you've gotten this far!), the request is a simple one. We want adversaries... Opponents... Balanced match making... I ask that any 3rd party developer with an idea in their head about a plane, or who is considering what would yield the best return on their invested efforts take a look at what is already being made and build whatever that aircraft's counterpart is, or something from that time period.

 

Take the vietnam era for example, the 3rd party planes already in progress, the Buckeye, Corsair, Huey, Star fighter, Tiger II, Mig-15, Mig-21 are great examples of planes that will fit in this time period, but there are so many others that could perform well here and give us a rich and varied set of aircraft to fill a realistically balanced virtual battlefield! Just think what we could do with the F-111 Aardvark, OV-10 Bronco, CH-47 Chinook, F-8 Crusader, F-102 Delta Dagger, C-37 Dragonfly, A-6 Intruder, F-4 Phantom, A-4 Skyhawk, A-1 Skyraider, F-105 Thunderchief against the Mi-6, Mi-8, Mig-17, Mig-19, Mig-23, SU-7, SU-15 and you could even add in the French Mirage III, Mirage V and the Alouette III, and the British Buccaneer, English Electric Lightning, Strike master and the Westland Wessex and you'd serve almost every nation and conflict zone around the world during the 60's!

 

In summary, make us add ons that compliment each other, and we'll give you our love, support and most importantly cash ;)


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Thanks for posting and I did read it all lol

 

A little insight into a 3rd party dev's mind might answer some of your questions and requests.

Obviously I can only talk about our development plan and what we do and I'm sure every 3rd party dev team is different.

 

Ok so first we need to come up with a concept. And I don't mean a single plane, I mean a concept of ideas for planes, missions, scenarios, terrain, etc.

I'm sure some dev teams out there just want to sell planes, and are very good at it, Iris as an example. That's their business, to sell add-ons. A good solid business model should see you make profit on your sales given your outlay.

So from a business point of view you have to look at your return and what will sell, not particularly what will fit into an era or style.

 

On the other side of the hand you have a team like us. FC/DCS enthusiasts that are looking at scenarios/eras and concepts.

This is where it gets tough from a business model point of view.

To build a scenario or era takes a lot of development time with planes, ground units, terrain, etc. each of which can take many months or years to develop. Return on investment is virtually nil and the business model just doesn't work.

 

So which route does a 3rd party dev go, just build and sell planes they think will sell, or create a scenario /era.

It's pretty much each to their own.

 

Of course we should all listen to what the customer wants but sometimes it just doesn't fit with a business model.

 

I'm sure as more mods are sold and someone creates an era then development will shift to that era. And of course not all mods are popular with everyone.

I think the work Beczl is doing is amazing and I have the utmost respect to him but the MiG does nothing for me and I won't be buying it.

 

When we start flying with the F22 and Typhoon hopefully someone will develop adversaries for them. Lets even through an F35 in the mix and these planes will sell due to popularity.

 

For us at VEAO it's about the scenario, planes, ground units, trainers (Hawk) and terrain.

But you know what, to do all that is going to take time.

Is there interest in an Afghan terrain, ground buildings and units integrated into Combined Arms with A-10's and choppers for support, I bet there is. But again it's going to take time to develop that scenario fully and hopefully other 3rd party devs will come together to have modules all working together.

 

That's my dream at least.

 

Anywho these are just my thoughts on the matter and hopefully gives you an insight.

 

Cheers,

Chris.

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Another thing about DCS is that to get the most out of it, devs need to announce early what they're working on so duplication is avoided. There are two devs creating an F-15, and regardless of whether they chase the DCS logo, assuming both are high quality, it will be first to market that wins, unless one is EXCEPTIONAL above what has gone before (compared to the A-10C for example).

 

It is great to see such a wide array of aircraft already. Some devs just chase what is popular and what will sell well regardless of whether there are already 4 others like it on the market for example. In the DCS world this would harm DCS overall, as it relies on there being a wide choice of aircraft, and not just American, but British, Russian and Canadian for example.

 

I think it will be a number of years before the true potential of DCS is realized. I certainly hope development (and compatibility!) continues for a long time yet. One problem with 2 year dev targets for a product, release and then forget about it, is that whilst it may make perfect business sense, it makes absolutely no sense for its user base, or longevity, and that IMHO is no way to run anything. Fine if you want to be a fly-by-night, but no good for long term success.

 

Best regards,

Tango.


Edited by Tango
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So there are lots of threads about 3rd party developers developing aircraft that they have either made for other sims, or have a burning fascination for and I'm very excited to see a lot of these in development, but let me put an idea out there...

 

For years many of us have been following ED's every sim and announcement, and I own almost everything that they have ever made, whether or not I'm interested in flying it, but more because detailed flight simulators are a rare thing and I want to give my support.

 

I will without doubt buy a lot of the 3rd party add on packages as they become available and I was one of the first in line with my cash to support Beczl's MiG 21 to further support this simulator.

 

But as a customer of these products, let me tell you a little about what I would 'like' to see and spend my money on, and I believe that there are many of us in this community that feel the same way...

 

I loved the old days of Red Flag with the first Flaming Cliffs release, and the competition and camaraderie that it brought, and I yearn to see it return, but there is a problem. Since the DCS titles have come along, ED have taken the whole simulation experience to the next level, almost beyond what many of us had imagined, which is fantastic, but the environment in which we fly has become a little stale and barren. I by no means wish to tell ED how they should be doing things, and don't mean any disrespect to their products but I need to fly with other humans, against other humans in an environment that makes us work hard to achieve our goals.

 

As it stands today (not withstanding how FC3 will change this), you fly a single type in a set environment against AI enemy's that let's just say leave a little to be desired. The result is that most of us have flown DCS: A-10C until we can pick off targets with our Lighting pod, GBU's, AGM's or JDAM's before they knew we were coming.

 

So what do we want? Despite the long build up (and thanks for reading if you've gotten this far!), the request is a simple one. We want adversaries... Opponents... Balanced match making... I ask that any 3rd party developer with an idea in their head about a plane, or who is considering what would yield the best return on their invested efforts take a look at what is already being made and build whatever that aircraft's counterpart is, or something from that time period.

 

Take the vietnam era for example, the 3rd party planes already in progress, the Buckeye, Corsair, Huey, Star fighter, Tiger II, Mig-15, Mig-21 are great examples of planes that will fit in this time period, but there are so many others that could perform well here and give us a rich and varied set of aircraft to fill a realistically balanced virtual battlefield! Just think what we could do with the F-111 Aardvark, OV-10 Bronco, CH-47 Chinook, F-8 Crusader, F-102 Delta Dagger, C-37 Dragonfly, A-6 Intruder, F-4 Phantom, A-4 Skyhawk, A-1 Skyraider, F-105 Thunderchief against the Mi-6, Mi-8, Mig-17, Mig-19, Mig-23, SU-7, SU-15 and you could even add in the French Mirage III, Mirage V and the Alouette III, and the British Buccaneer, English Electric Lightning, Strike master and the Westland Wessex and you'd serve almost every nation and conflict zone around the world during the 60's!

 

In summary, make us add ons that compliment each other, and we'll give you our love, support and most importantly cash ;)

 

 

+1

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In summary, make us add ons that compliment each other, and we'll give you our love, support and most importantly cash ;)

 

+1

 

An Vietnam or Afghanistan Theater would be awesome.

 

I think P-51D is a good example, it's an very interesting plane and probably ultra-realistic (never flown a real one, so can't tell) but it's missing opponents.

 

It's similar for some of the other planes (altough they mostly have close-enough counterparts).

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Team VRC maintains the vision to create a fast mover add-on with high quality graphics, high fidelity FM and fully clickable cockpit and systems. Our choice for our first project was not a market focused one. It was a test bed for us to get up to speed on our development process. And give a chance to mature as a team before we take on something like the Aardvark, Phantom or Tornado which are all awesome aircraft.

 

We have begun building our project based on our design concepts and now have a player flyable aircraft with ordinance and an external model that is just looking great. We are now working on the cockpit and hitting wall after wall especially after 1.22 due to lack of documentation. Let us figure out the cockpit args and we will publish our findings.

 

Our progress toward getting development status is a revolving door. We need a cockpit in our aircraft for the proof of concept but we do not have enough documentation to get there. Not to worry we are a tenuous group.

 

We plan to release our Fast Mover and our Helo for free to hopefully to entice some new players over to DCSW with more free offerings then just the SU-25 to check out before they buy.

 

It will not be till next year before we really start developing an aircraft that we are passionate about as team. Just one of the many milestones that we have to pass on our way to becoming a respected development shop.

 

So to help you understand, the working going on behind the scenes is not sexy, it is allot of hard work and set back after set back.

 

In conclusion, I agree with you on everyone of your points.

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The Brick wall was already annoying us, but now seems ED has added a re-enforced steel layer behind that wall.. Effectively removing any hope that we could jack hammer through it, now we must look into both jack hammer and Plasma torching it.

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I disagree with you there Skates.

ED have change the way some things work in order to help dev teams create a better product. External surface animations tied into EAFM as an example.

It just seems like there's a 10 foot wall with reinforced steel in it.

Be patient for the best is yet to come.

 

P.s. try the JDAM instead ;)

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Javelin..

Plus we are hoping we can figure out the combination to that lock that's on the steel wall...

Windows 10 Pro, Ryzen 2700X @ 4.6Ghz, 32GB DDR4-3200 GSkill (F4-3200C16D-16GTZR x2),

ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate, XFX RX6800XT Merc 310 (RX-68XTALFD9)

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ED have change the way some things work in order to help dev teams create a better product.

 

Doesn't make it any less unannounced or undocumented. ;) I understand that they have limited resources, but it would have taken the people responsible only minutes to write "external arguments are being revamped and will be explained in the coming week" or something of that nature. Just sayin'. Although, of anyone here, I should be the least surprised by setbacks and trial/error. :D

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doesnt help that we are not able to access those yet anyway, lol.

Windows 10 Pro, Ryzen 2700X @ 4.6Ghz, 32GB DDR4-3200 GSkill (F4-3200C16D-16GTZR x2),

ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate, XFX RX6800XT Merc 310 (RX-68XTALFD9)

3x ASUS VS248HP + Oculus HMD, Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS + MFDs

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The Brick wall was already annoying us, but now seems ED has added a re-enforced steel layer behind that wall.. Effectively removing any hope that we could jack hammer through it, now we must look into both jack hammer and Plasma torching it.

 

Boy do i feel that!

"Witness mere F-14s taking off from adjacent flight decks, gracefully canting left and right, afterburners flaming, and there’s something that sweeps you away—or at least it does me. And no amount of knowledge of the potential abuses of carrier task forces can affect the depth of that feeling. It simply speaks to another part of me. It doesn’t want recriminations or politics. It just wants to fly.”

― Carl Sagan

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